Mav 3, 1900. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



I7JI 



House of Kaiserin Roses atyhe Establishment of the J. M. Gasser Co., Cleveland. 



The question of pruning these tall 

 and rapid growing roses has been much 

 debated, and many experiments have 

 been tried. At last we have learned what 

 to do — or rather what not to do — as the 

 best treatment is to let them pretty 

 much alone, says W. Van Fleet in the 

 Rural New Yorker. Let them grow at 

 will, only directing, and training the 

 canes enough to secure reasonably se- 

 cure attachments to the trellis or other 

 support. They scarcely need pruning for 

 several years after planting, except to 

 cut out any weak or useless canes and 

 nip off winter-killed wood after growth 

 has started in spring. It is a great mis- 

 take to cut out the old canes yearly in 

 the manner of blackberries and rasp- 

 berries. Rose canes normally live sev- 

 eral years and the ramblers often pro- 

 duce the finest clusters of bloom on 

 growths two or three years old. 



After thcr third year the vitality of 

 the canes diminishes; they become 

 twiggy and the bark turns light in color. 

 They should then neatly be cut away at 

 the base or just above a plump bud or 

 promising new sprout. Interfering 

 branches and twiggy growths as well as 

 weak wood generally should be cleared 

 away and the end of the younger canes 

 slightly shortened, but as a rule the nat- 

 ural growth should be little disturbed. 

 By trifling management new canes can 

 be started each year after the third sea- 

 son to replace the failing ones. 



Greenhouse Beating. 



HOT SPRING FOR HEATER. 



Could one use water at 150 to 160 

 uegrces to heat a greenhouse? How 

 much extra piping would it take? Would 



a windy climate be detrimental to stock 

 grown in the house? 



I know of a hot spring where the 

 water is at the heat mentioned and can 

 probably get the use of it. Coal is $7.50 

 per ton here in Oregon. There is 

 another hot spring where the water is 

 almost boiling. The wind there blows 

 incessantly and blows almost hard enough 

 to blow a greenhouse in. R. C. E. 



Yes, water at 160 degrees can be suc- 

 cessfully used to heat a greenhouse. 

 Several years ago I was interested in a 

 similar problem in South Dakota, where 

 the warm flow from an artesian well was 

 used for a similar purpose. In Alaska 

 hot springs are taken advantage of for 

 forcing vegetables. The only way in 

 which I can answer the question in re- 

 gard to the amount of piping necessary 

 is to answer a definite question. That 

 is, compute the piping necessary for a 

 house of some particular size. One prob- 

 lem which you will have to consider is 

 how to secure a circulation of the warm 

 water through the houses. A plan for 

 utilizing water of low heat is to cause 

 it to flow slowly through a broad open 

 trough constructed of boards or metal, 

 the trough to be about as wide as the 

 benches and to flow entirely around three 

 sides of the house if possible. This 

 scheme may be cheaper than piping. 



L. C. C. 



VACUUM STEAM HEATING. 



The business man today is confronted 

 with problems of which the business man 

 of fifty years ago knew practically noth- 

 ing. Competition grows keener each day 

 with the result that the successful man 

 spends half of his time in studying the 

 two great problems, how to decrease the 

 cost of production and how to decrease 

 the expense or waste necessary in the 

 proper conduct of his business. One of 



the greatest sources of expense to the 

 florist is the proposition of properly 

 heating his greenhouses. His boiler, 

 like the insatiable monster of old, 

 stands with angry maw continually call- 

 ing for more and more fuel, until it 

 seems to the man who is paying the bill 

 that practically all the profit he is sup- 

 posed to make in his business is being 

 turned over to the coal men. But prog- 

 ress is the watchword of the American 

 people and while the florist is busily en- 

 gaged in endeavoring to perfect the fol- 

 iage and flowers of the plants under his 

 care, manufacturers of heating appli- 

 ances are also busy in the effort to so 

 perfect methods of heating as to give 

 the user the maximum result with the 

 least expenditure for fuel. 



While it is a fact that all users of 

 heating apparatuses are interested in 

 any appliance that will tend to eliminate 

 the unnecessary waste of fuel, the florist 

 is much more vitally interested in this 

 direction, because the cost of fuel is such 

 a very large item in his expense account. 

 There is no question but what the strong 

 trend in modem low pressure steam heat- 

 ing for many classes of buildings is to- 

 ward the vacuum system. It has long 

 been a recognized fact by heating engin- 

 eers that the ideal system of low pres- 

 sure steam heating is one in which the 

 apparatus is so constructed that the same 

 can be operated either under pressure or 

 under vacuum at the will of the operator. 



It is a commonly accepted fact that 

 water boils and generates steam at 212 

 degrees, but it is not so generally known 

 that the real boiling point of water when 

 pressure is entirely removed from the 

 same is 98 degrees Fahrenheit. The rea- 

 son why water does not boil until it 

 reaches a temperature of 212 degrees is 

 because the air which surrounds the 

 earth's surface exerts a pressure, at the 

 sea level, of 14.7 pounds. If we remove 



